September 25, 2013

Dr. Jennifer Taylor, an associate professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, is the first author on an article titled “A dissonant scale: stress recognition in the SAQ” in BMC Research Notes. Ravi Pandian, MS, a former research analyst and programmer in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health is a coauthor on this paper.

The article discusses analyses using the Stress Reduction subscale of the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ), and finds that the Stress Recognition subscale does not fit into the overall safety climate construct the SAQ intended to reflect. The authors make recommendations on the omission of this subscale from the overall safety climate score calculations, and how it should be further investigated for future use because it is an important organizational metric.